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Cable companies continue to pooh-pooh Fiber, the super-fast Internet connection and TV service that utterly shames their own services in both speed and price.

But cable investors might want to keep a close watch on this project, which is beginning to look like the biggest threat to those merger-hyped cable shares since got serious about streaming.

Note in a stock chart how much more fun it’s been to be a Google or Netflix investor lately, even with merger talks hyping cable shares.

Since November, Google Fiber has sold a $70-a-month Internet connection to Kansas City residents that can do in seconds what takes minutes on a ’s $74.99-a-month connection. Google Fiber is about 150 times as fast as the connections most cable subscribers buy there, and for an additional $50, it comes with television too.

and executives treat that competition as Google’s little hobby—perhaps a ploy to embarrass them into better service, which they insist won’t work. Last month, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts addressed the Google Fiber threat with a demonstration showing that his company could create connectivity at 3 gigabytes if it wanted to. (Google Fiber runs at 1 gbps.)

Roberts and cohorts say there’s no demand for super speed connections, as demonstrated by the high number of people who refuse to pay them $300 a month or more for their highest speed connections. Those typically top out at 105mb.

But there’s no question that speed is becoming more of a driver of sales. As customers connect more and more devices to their home Wi-Fi, they need faster connections to keep them running optimally. Time Warner recently reported that 21% of its broadband customers subscribe to its more expensive, higher-speed services, compared to just 9% three years ago. It is Internet subscriptions that kept it and Comcast profits growing even as interest in cable television services wanes.

Austin, Texas, and Provo, Utah, may tamp down the swagger. Google Fiber announced in April plans to move into both cities, along with a dozen other Kansas and Missouri cities. Time Warner immediately responded with free Wi-Fi hotspots for Austin customers. (And a big shout-out to Google for speeding up the project.) In Provo, Google will compete head-to-head with Comcast.

Last year, cable television’s popular programming was expected to keep many viewers tied in. But in Kansas City now, the lineup on Google Fiber looks a lot like Time Warner’s, complete with ESPN, Disney (DIS) and CNN. In April, Google announced that HBO would be available for an extra $20 a month.

Cable companies can still control prices in many, many markets, where the only competition is the phone company’s even slower DSL service. But Bernstein Research went door-to-door to 204 households in Kansas City earlier this year and determined that 52% “definitely or probably” would buy Google Fiber. If Google gets serious about nationwide expansion, it can make the competition hurt.

That’s the big “if.” Google insists it’s in this to make money, but it’s noncommittal on how far it will go. Bernstein estimates Google needs some $11 billion for a serious nationwide roll-out and has only spent $87 million on this project so far. With $50 billion in cash and short-term investments, it looks like Google can afford to jack with those cable companies, which include Charter Communications (CHTR) and Cablevision (CVC), for a long time to come.

Here we compare Google’s cash position to the vulnerable market caps of the cable companies.

Financial research will show there's much to like about the cable companies, but one must also keep watch on the competitive situation.

Dee Gill, a senior contributing editor at YCharts, is a former foreign correspondent for AP-Dow Jones News in London, where she covered the U.K. equities market and economic indicators. She has written for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist and Time magazine. She can be reached at editor@ycharts.com. You can also request a demonstration of YCharts Platinum.